S.D. Banker Supports Stem Cell Research

Luci Baines Johnson is escorted after a burial service for her mother, former first lady Lady Bird Johnson Sunday, July 15, 2007 at the Johnson Family Cemetery in Stonewall, Texas. The widow of former President Lyndon B. Johnson died Wednesday of natural causes. She was 94. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip, Pool)

Sioux Falls banker and philanthropist T. Denny Sanford is giving $30 million to a stem cell research initiative based in San Diego.

Sanford says the funds will go to the San Diego Consortium for Regenerative Medicine - four institutes that will collaborate on the research.

Human embryonic stem cell research is controversial, but scientists say it could aid the treatment for a range of diseases. Stem cells can grow into any kind of tissue in the body.

In 2000, South Dakota banned anyone from knowingly conducting "nontherapeutic research that destroys a human embryo" or research that subjects an embryo to "substantial risk of injury or death." It also bans anyone from using for research purposes "cells or tissues that the person knows were obtained" through embryonic stem cell research.

The philanthropist said Type 1 diabetes is one of several diseases that could benefit from stem cell research.

The donation "makes sense because I believe that stem cell technology may be a significant part, if not the major (driver) of medicine in the future," Sanford said Tuesday.

The San Diego consortium includes the Burnham Institute for Medical Research, the University of California-San Diego, the Salk Institute and the Scripps Research Institute. It will be renamed the Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine.

The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine has made a $43 million grant. That plus the Sanford donation will help build and equip the new center, to be built next to Torrey Pines Golf Course.

Burnham is a major research partner of Sanford Health, thanks to a $20 million donation last year.